January home prices, sales slip

Typical winter fallback masks evident housing recovery

This Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, photo, shows a home for sale in Leucadia, Calif.. U.S. home prices accelerated in November compared with a year ago, pushed higher by rising sales and a tighter supply of available homes (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

This Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012, photo, shows a home for sale in Leucadia, Calif.. U.S. home prices accelerated in November compared with a year ago, pushed higher by rising sales and a tighter supply of available homes (AP Photo/Gregory Bull)

San Diego County housing prices took their usual winter break and slipped 4.4 percent from December to January to a median $350,000, locally based DataQuick reported Wednesday.

The sales total also dropped back to 2,717 transactions, a 27.7 percent decline from December.

But year over year, both prices and sales continued their slow march back from recessionary lows. Prices on a year-ago basis were up for the 10th straight month and sales rose for 18th time in a row. It was the best January sales count in six years.

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For the six-county Southern California region, DataQuick painted the same picture.

The median price stood at $321,000, down 0.6 percent from December and up 23.5 percent from January 2012. The sales count was 16,058, down 20.8 percent from December, up 10.6 percent from January last year.

"This fledgling housing recovery has momentum," said DataQuick President John Walsh. "Already, price hikes have caused some to question whether it's sustainable, whether it's a 'bubble.' Let's not forget, though, that we're still climbing out of a deep hole from the housing downturn."

In San Diego, the peak median home price reached $517,500 in November 2005 and dropped 45.9 percent to $280,000 in January 2009 before starting to rise again. The January median equals the September and October figure.

Winter months historically have not proven very accurate in predicting the course of a year's housing activity. This is a time when only the most motivated sellers put their homes on the market.

However, a closer look at the local numbers indicates greater strength in some areas than the countywide figures would suggest.

For example, the resale single-family-home price stood at $376,000, only 5.8 percent below the December figure and was the best January since 2008's $451,500. Sales were the highest for any January since 2005's 2,024.

How the county did

At the subregional level on a year-over-year basis, Central San Diego did the best in price appreciation. The overall median stood at $360,000, up 20 percent from January 2012's $300,000.

East County came in second with a 15.1 percent price increase to $305,000, followed by North County Inland, up 14.7 percent to $372,750; North County Coast, up 12.9 percent to $444,500; and South County, up 9.1 percent to $305,550.

DataQuick's Walsh said it's likely that the housing price pressures might ease in coming months as more people put their homes on the market and more newly built homes are offered for sale.

Distressed/foreclosure sales

Meanwhile, 40.9 percent of the current market remains tied to distressed properties - those that have gone through foreclosure or are being sold as short-sales, offered for less than their mortgage balance.

January foreclosure resales -- homes foreclosed on in the previous 12 months -- accounted for 15 percent of Southern California resale transactions. That was up from December's 14.2 percent and down from 32.6 percent in January 2012. Foreclosure resales reached a high of 56.7 percent in February 2009.

Short-sales made up an estimated 25.9 percent in January, down from 26.5 percent in December and 27.2 percent in January 2012.

Absentee/cash buyers

Absentee buyers -- those buying vacation homes or as investments -- represented a record 30.7 percent of all homes. Since 2000, absentee buying has averaged 17.8 percent of the market.

All-cash buyers accounted for 34.9 percent, down slightly from the record 35.7 percent in December. Since 1988 the monthly average for all-cash buying is 15.8 percent.

As a reflection of low mortgage interest rates, DataQuick calculated that the typical monthly payment for a January purchase was $1,140, up one dollar from December and up $157 from January 2012.